Effect of Best Possible Self Writing Activities on Preservice Teachers' Attitudes towards Technology Integration.

Preservice teachers' attitudes towards technology integration influence their motivation for and future behavior in teaching, but effective interventions to modify attitudes towards technology integration are scarce in teacher education programs. This quasi-experimental study redesigned and integrated one of the most widely used positive psychology interventions-Best Possible Self (BPS)-for use in a stand-alone technology integration course to measure its effect in improving preservice teachers' attitudes towards technology integration. While results show no statistically significant difference between the control and treatment groups, the treatment group had more positive trends (significant increase in positive attitudes) than the control group (no significant increase in positive attitudes) even under the negative influence of pandemic.

Effects of Atmospheric CO and Temperature on Wheat and Corn Susceptibility to and Deoxynivalenol Contamination.

This work details the impact of atmospheric CO and temperature conditions on two strains of their disease damage, pathogen growth, mycotoxin accumulation, and production per unit fungal biomass in wheat and corn. An elevated atmospheric CO concentration, 1000 ppm CO, significantly increased the accumulation of deoxynivalenol in infected plants. Furthermore, growth in cool growing conditions, 20 °C/18 °C, day and night, respectively, resulted in the highest amounts of pathogen biomass and toxin accumulation in both inoculated wheat and corn.

, sp. nov, a novel type A trichothecene-producing species from native grasses in a wetland ecosystem in Argentina.

The Chaco wetland is among the most biologically diverse regions in Argentina. In collections of fungi from asymptomatic native grasses (Poaceae) from the wetlands, we identified isolates of that were morphologically similar to , but distinct from it by their production of abundant microconidia. All the isolates had identical, or nearly identical, partial sequences of and .

Fairness as Equal Concession: Critical Remarks on Fair AI.

Although existing work draws attention to a range of obstacles in realizing fair AI, the field lacks an account that emphasizes how these worries hang together in a systematic way. Furthermore, a review of the fair AI and philosophical literature demonstrates the unsuitability of 'treat like cases alike' and other intuitive notions as conceptions of fairness. That review then generates three desiderata for a replacement conception of fairness valuable to AI research: (1) It must provide a meta-theory for understanding tradeoffs, entailing that it must be flexible enough to capture diverse species of objection to decisions.

No Impact? Long-Term Effects of Applying the Best Possible Self Intervention in a Real-World Undergraduate Classroom Setting.

Positive psychology interventions (PPIs) improve students' well-being in laboratory settings. Best possible self (BPS) is one of the most widely used PPIs shown in the laboratory to effectively improve participants' well-being in both the short- and long-term, but limited research has been conducted in real-world contexts. This study applied BPS in an undergraduate classroom to examine its long-term effects.

Investigating Students' Perceptions of Screencasting Style of Video Feedback in Online Courses.

Feedback is an essential part of the learning process. Asynchronous online courses are marked by an abundance of text-based feedback. Yet, video feedback in asynchronous online courses is a nascent field of inquiry.

Novice Instructional Designers' Attitudes towards the Best Possible Self Activity and the Correlation with Personality and Subjective Well-Being.

The effectiveness of positive psychology interventions relies heavily on participants' buy-in and personality traits. The Best Possible Self (BPS) intervention asks participants to envision their ideal future, supposing that everything goes smoothly. The BPS shows salient effects in improving subjective well-being in laboratory settings.

Detoxification and Excretion of Trichothecenes in Transgenic Expressing Trichothecene 3--acetyltransferase.

, the causal agent of Fusarium head blight (FHB), produces trichothecenes including deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol (NIV), and 3,7,15-trihydroxy-12,13-epoxytrichothec-9-ene (NX-3). These toxins contaminate grains and cause profound health problems in humans and animals. To explore exploiting a fungal self-protection mechanism in plants, we examined the ability of trichothecene 3--acetyltransferase () to detoxify several key trichothecenes produced by : DON, 15-ADON, NX-3, and NIV.

Impaired Audiovisual Representation of Phonemes in Children with Developmental Language Disorder.

We examined whether children with developmental language disorder (DLD) differed from their peers with typical development (TD) in the degree to which they encode information about a talker's mouth shape into long-term phonemic representations. Children watched a talker's face and listened to rare changes from [i] to [u] or the reverse. In the neutral condition, the talker's face had a closed mouth throughout.

Conversations about wellness: A qualitative analysis of patient narratives post annual wellness visit.

Support for successful aging in place requires an understanding of the factors that impede or support health promotion behaviors. Nurse-led monthly follow-up calls between annual wellness visits (AWV) offer the opportunity to both provide support and collect data which can inform development of effective health promotion strategies. The aim of this research was to provide ongoing support for health promotion efforts and explore factors playing a role in meeting AWV recommendations.

Reasons for 2-furaldehyde and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde resistance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: current state of knowledge and perspectives for further improvements.

Common toxic compounds 2-furaldehyde (furfural) and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde (HMF) are formed from dehydration of pentose and hexose, respectively, during decomposition of lignocellulosic biomass polymers. Furfural and HMF represent a major class of aldehyde toxic chemicals that inhibit microbial growth and interfere with subsequent fermentation for production of renewable fuels and chemicals. Understanding mechanisms of yeast tolerance aids development of tolerant strains as the most economic means to overcome the toxicity.

Synthesis and Characterization of Hydrophobically Modified Xylans.

Xylan is a major type of hemicellulose that has attracted a lot of research and development activities. It is often derivatized in order to improve its properties. In the literature, hydrophobic modification of polymers is often used to produce surfactant-like materials and associative thickeners.

Obesity and Hair Cortisol: Relationships Varied Between Low-Income Preschoolers and Mothers.

Purpose: Literature on the relationship between hair cortisol concentration (HCC) and body mass index (BMI) is scarce and inconsistent in both preschoolers and parents. Thus, the study aimed to examine the relationships among HCC, perceived distress, coping, and BMI among low-income Head Start preschoolers and mothers.

Methods: A cross-sectional, correlational study was conducted with a non-random sample of 35 mother-preschooler dyads.

Development and Physical Characterization of α-Glucan Nanoparticles.

α-Glucans that were enzymatically synthesized from sucrose using glucansucrase cloned from NRRL B-1118 were found to have a glass transition temperature of approximately 80 °C. Using high-pressure homogenization (~70 MPa), the α-glucans were converted into nanoparticles of ~120 nm in diameter with a surface potential of ~-3 mV. Fluorescence measurements using 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) indicate that the α-glucan nanoparticles have a hydrophobic core that remains intact from 10 to 85 °C.

Difficulties with health self-management by older adults: The role of well-being.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between three aspects of well-being (positive and negative affect, self-realization, and self-efficacy and resilience) and disease self-management or difficulties in managing care. Logistic regression models were used to analyze data from a sample of community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries 65-years or older who participated in the National Health and Aging Trends Study and responded to well-being and engagement in health care questions (n = 1663). All three aspects of well-being were significantly associated with reduced difficulties in care management for both the participants and their family and friends who assist them.

Brief Report: Reduced Heart Rate Variability in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which can be indexed by heart rate variability (HRV), has been posited to contribute to core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the relationship between ASD and HRV remains uncertain. We assessed tonic and phasic HRV of 21 children with ASD and 21 age- and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children and examined (1) group differences in HRV and (2) associations between HRV and ASD symptomatology.

Exploring non-linear transition pathways in social-ecological systems.

Tipping point dynamics are fundamental drivers for sustainable transition pathways of social-ecological systems (SES). Current research predominantly analyzes how crossing tipping points causes regime shifts, however, the analysis of potential transition pathways from these social and ecological tipping points is often overlooked. In this paper, we analyze transition pathways and the potential outcomes that these may lead to via a stylized model of a system composed of interacting agents exploiting resources and, by extension, the overall ecosystem.

Hydrophobic Modification of Cashew Gum with Alkenyl Succinic Anhydride.

Cashew gum (CG) shows promise of being useful as an agro-based raw material for the production of eco-friendly and biodegradable polymers. In this work, we modified this water-soluble polymer with alkenyl succinic anhydride in order to attach a hydrophobic group to it. The modification used two reagents: octenyl succinic anhydride and tetrapropenyl succinic anhydride.

Pathway-based signature transcriptional profiles as tolerance phenotypes for the adapted industrial yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae resistant to furfural and HMF.

The industrial yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a plastic genome with a great flexibility in adaptation to varied conditions of nutrition, temperature, chemistry, osmolarity, and pH in diversified applications. A tolerant strain against 2-furaldehyde (furfural) and 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde (HMF) was successfully obtained previously by adaptation through environmental engineering toward development of the next-generation biocatalyst. Using a time-course comparative transcriptome analysis in response to a synergistic challenge of furfural-HMF, here we report tolerance phenotypes of pathway-based transcriptional profiles as components of the adapted defensive system for the tolerant strain NRRL Y-50049.

2DKD: a toolkit for content-based local image search.

Background: Direct comparison of 2D images is computationally inefficient due to the need for translation, rotation, and scaling of the images to evaluate their similarity. In many biological applications, such as digital pathology and cryo-EM, often identifying specific local regions of images is of particular interest. Therefore, finding invariant descriptors that can efficiently retrieve local image patches or subimages becomes necessary.

Enzymatic Synthesis and Flash Chromatography Separation of 1,3-Diferuloyl--Glycerol and 1-Feruloyl--Glycerol.

Ethyl ferulate was transesterified with Enova Oil (a soy-based vegetable oil containing 80-85% diacylglycerol) using Novozym 435 at 60 °C. The resultant feruloylated vegetable oil reaction product produced a precipitate (96.4 g, 4.

A Meta-analysis of Challenging Behavior Interventions for Students with Developmental Disabilities in Inclusive School Settings.

Challenging behavior is a significant barrier in accessing the general education curriculum for students with developmental disabilities. This necessitates the identification of evidence-based practices for addressing challenging behavior in inclusive settings. The purpose of our meta-analysis is to (a) quantify the magnitude of effect of interventions targeting the reduction of challenging behavior in students with developmental disabilities in inclusive educational settings and (b) determine if participant and intervention characteristics moderate intervention effects.

Does hair cortisol really reflect perceived stress? Findings from low-income mother-preschooler dyads.

Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) has emerged as an objective biological measure of stress in humans, but findings on the relationships between perceived stress and HCC and between mothers' HCC and children's HCC are inconsistent. To advance the understanding of HCC and its relationship with perceived stress, this study aimed to examine the relationships among mothers' HCC, perceived stress, distress, coping, and preschoolers' HCC in a low-income population. A correlational study was conducted with 35 Head Start mother-preschooler dyads.

Modeling the population impacts of avian malaria on Hawaiian honeycreepers: Bifurcation analysis and implications for conservation.

Avian malaria is a mosquito-borne parasitic disease of birds caused by protists of the genera Plasmodium, most notably Plasmodium relictum. This disease has been identified as a primary cause of the drastic decline and extinctions of birds, in particular Hawaiian honeycreepers (Drepanidinae), where rates of mortality may exceed 90%. We formulate an epizootiological model of the transmission dynamics of avian malaria between populations of bird hosts and mosquito vectors using a system of compartmental ordinary differential equations.

Money matters: an analysis of advanced cancer couples' communication about financial concerns.

Unlabelled: Even for the insured, cancer treatment can be expensive and financially burdensome for families, especially in advanced disease.

Purpose: To determine if advanced cancer patient-caregiver spousal dyads identified and/or discussed financial concerns.

Methods: Advanced cancer spousal dyads (n = 26) were asked to discuss their concerns (including finances) for 10 min.